How the computer killed capitalism.
How the computer killed capitalism.
Best. Of. Cory Doctorow’s essays (with sh*t i had no idea about)
29 comments
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Stopped reading when he misexplained and oversimplified the microchip shortage.
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You should finish it, there are a lot of good points later on. I almost bailed when I thought he was trying to say that socialism was the proper fix (maybe that's his view, but it's not the conclusion in the article).
What he's really saying is that IP law is the one to blame for things becoming so anti consumer. If companies didn't have as much IP protection, it would be a lot more difficult for them to control end devices, to the point where it may end up being more profitable to benefit consumers instead. For example, if we cut copyright to 5 years instead of creator's life + 70, we'd have no problems with game preservation because it would be completely legal for older games to be freely distributed and repackaged (e.g. you could buy arcade cabinets with dozens of games preloaded). But because they have the government there to enforce IP law, nobody can touch those old games without risking a major lawsuit.
Essentially, the fight for the right to repair is just a symptom of the issues with the IP legal framework.
There's a lot of crap in there too, but skim past all that.
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For example, if we cut copyright to 5 years instead of creator's life + 70, we'd have no problems with game preservation because it would be completely legal for older games to be freely distributed and repackaged (e.g. you could buy arcade cabinets with dozens of games preloaded). But because they have the government there to enforce IP law, nobody can touch those old games without risking a major lawsuit.
That sound like a band aid against a septic shock.
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It only gets worse from there.
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Funny how imaginary trust systems somehow "killed" imaginary property. Maybe someone could expedite the meaning of this essay into my brain (I seem to have misplaced my Word Salad-to-English dictionary).
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Maybe someone could expedite the meaning of this essay into my brain (I seem to have misplaced my Word Salad-to-English dictionary).
The "meaning" if it can even be called that is just a really unhinged rant hating on the fact that cars have computers in them despite seemingly having zero understanding of automobile design, consumer market research, or economics.
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There's a lot of BS in there, but here's my takeaway:
IP law protects large organizations and limits competition
For example, if I want to make an arcade cabinet, I need to get permission from all of the rights holders of each game, even if those games aren't available for sale today. If copyright expired after a reasonable time (say, 5-10 years), I could make competitive products.
Another example is that if I buy a movie, I cannot legally buy tools to break the encryption to make a backup. So if my disk breaks, I'm SOL and need to buy another. So I do not truly own the thing I bought.
Or for the example of cars, if I buy a car today that has hardware for heating my seats, I cannot use those seat warmers unless I pay to unlock them. I cannot do that because the company owns the IP for the system to enable it and I have to pay to access that closed system. If they didn't have such strong protections, I could buy cracked software to break whatever stupid encryption they have.
And so on. I think the comparison with feudalism is silly (this is different, though if you squint it's related), but I see that as largely SEO and rage-baiting.
The real argument is useful, and here's my takeaway:
- we should fight for the right to repair, but realize it's a distraction from the real fight we should be having, rich is:
- we should fight to fix IP laws to encourage more competition in the marketplace; if there's enough competition, companies will need to make better products instead of just suing competition into the ground
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29 comments